


Hips Don't Lie

by furiosity



Series: Eternal Summer (Right out of Hand) [10]
Category: Free!
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 19:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2281995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Rin has weird dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hips Don't Lie

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the same as the Shakira song ofc but also relevant. I have no shame.

Rin dreams of an Olympic pool somewhere he's never been. The signs around the bleachers are in a language he doesn't understand.

He's at the edge of the pool, watching the water shimmer beneath harsh fluorescence. Sousuke looms behind him, his hand large and warm against the middle of Rin's back. It feels like he's about to push Rin into the water, propel him forward while he stays behind. Rin doesn't want that. He doesn't want to leave anyone behind: especially not Sousuke.

He turns around to say so, but doesn't get the chance.

Sousuke looks at him with that calm, steady gaze. "My shoulder may be busted, but my hips are just fine."

"What about your hips?" Rin asks, but his phone alarm yanks him right out of the dream, and he's pretty sure that he says at least part of that sentence out loud.

He sits up, rubs his neck, and yawns. What a weird dream.

Throughout the morning, dream-Sousuke's last phrase sticks around like a persistent melody. It kind of makes sense that Rin would dream about Sousuke talking about his shoulder: he was shocked by the news, and he's not quite sure how to talk about the future now without making Sousuke feel left out. 

But what does that have to do with Sousuke's hips? Why did Rin's subconscious -- or wherever dreams come from -- decide to make Rin think about them?

_Maybe it's clairvoyance,_ Rin thinks on the way to afternoon practice. _Maybe my dream tried to tell me that Sousuke's shoulder isn't the only problem._

During practice, he pays extra attention to Sousuke's hips, but doesn't notice anything off. Hip injuries aren't that common in their age bracket, and even then they're more likely to happen to breaststroke swimmers.

As always since learning of Sousuke's shoulder, Rin supervises his cool-down stretches. As always, the rest of the team is long gone by the time they're done. In the showers, Rin takes another look at Sousuke's hips -- it's easier to see them move without the interference of his jammer, but he can't see anything wrong. He's no physiotherapist but he's pretty sure Sousuke's only problem is his shoulder.

His dream was probably just the result of too much worrying, that's all.

He gets dressed before Sousuke and sits on the changing room bench fiddling with next week's team practice menu spreadsheet.

"Hey, Rin." 

Rin doesn't look up from his phone. "Hmm?"

"Are you going to tell me why you spent all practice staring at my crotch or are you going to keep pretending it didn't happen?"

Rin glares at him. "What? That's ridiculous. I was looking at your hips."

Sousuke glares back. "A likely story."

They have a silent you-blink-first showdown for a good minute. Sousuke loses. 

Rin sighs. "You're just gonna laugh at me."

Sousuke's shrug is non-committal. "Probably," he agrees.

Rin fights the urge to stick out his tongue. Somehow Sousuke always manages to bring out his inner nine-year-old. "I had a weird dream, where you said something about your hips. So--"

"You were dreaming about me? What else did I do?" Sousuke interrupts, lifting his gym bag off the floor and rising, ready to leave.

Rin grins. "Wouldn't you like to know!" He delivers a light punch to Sousuke's good upper arm and sets off towards the dorms. "Anyway, why would I be interested in your crotch?"

"I can think of a couple of reasons," Sousuke parries. 

Rin rolls his eyes and keeps walking. "As if."

-

Rin stands at the edge of the pool, watching the water shimmer in the scant light from the glass-edged roof of the sports complex. He's only one qualifier away from the brightly lit place of his dreams, somewhere far away where people speak languages he doesn't understand.

"How long are you going to stand there psyching yourself out? Let's go get some rest."

"Hey, Sousuke."

Sousuke puts his hands on Rin's shoulders. "Quit brooding in the dark. That's my job."

Rin smiles, thinking back to high school. He did his share of brooding then, with only a stray kitten to keep him company -- and only until his friends pulled him back out into daylight. Makoto sent him a good-luck mail earlier, apologising that he and Haru couldn't come and watch him swim. Makoto is still the only person he knows who would sincerely apologise for not being able to fly halfway across the country just to watch a single race.

"Now both your shoulder and your hips are fine," Rin murmurs, remembering the weird dream he had in third year, the one that -- slowly and with a lot of awkward false starts -- led him to understand just what Sousuke is to him; all while Sousuke waited patiently.

Nowadays, Sousuke's hips are a place Rin's thighs fit nicely against when they fuck standing up. Rin likes to rest one hand against Sousuke's hip when he gives him head, the pad of his thumb soft against the jutting hipbone. Rin's other fingers get a turn, too, when Rin tops from behind, Sousuke panting and bent over the first available waist-high surface. Last year in Brazil, they ended up in a hotel room with mirrored walls, and Rin watched Sousuke's hips move in them, seeing for the first time what it looks like when Sousuke fucks him.

But tonight's a bad night for going that far; Neither can afford memorable ass twinges tomorrow. The Olympic qualifiers are the toughest swims of any athlete's life -- in some ways, they're even harder than the Olympic events themselves. At world-stage championships, competitors are admired just for showing up. Simply being there is a sort of trophy. But before he and Sousuke can stand there, they have to beat everyone else trying to do the same. No one here will congratulate them for a job well done if they're so much as half a second too late.

Rin takes Sousuke's proffered hand and follows him out into a warm night filled with the scent of freshly fallen rain -- moist earth and wet tree bark.

"It smells like happy worms," Sousuke observes, as though reading Rin's mind.

Rin smacks him upside the head. "Be more romantic."

"That's why I said they were happy worms," Sousuke objects, rubbing his head. "Happy is romantic. Even though they're only happy because they finally get to have some water."

Rin snorts. "If that's your idea of romantic, maybe you should just be quiet."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

They don't let go of each other's hands as they make their way back to the hotel through the puddles in the pockmarked pavement. In the empty elevator to their floor, Rin rests his hands on Sousuke's hips and presses him against the grimy mirror on the back wall, and Sousuke kisses him.

Even if everything else changes tomorrow, this won't. Maybe that's all the edge Rin's going to need in order to win. Maybe it always has been.

[end]


End file.
